Whether she likes it or not, Moira Green has a target pasted on her back as the defending Canadian junior biathlon champion.
That just comes with territory when you’re the jackrabbit and in Saturday’s junior women’s sprint, despite four missed targets in her prone shooting bout, nobody could catch Green at the Biathlon Canada Junior/Youth World Championship trials.
Skiing on her home Prince George trails at Otway Nordic Centre for the host Caledonia Nordic Ski Club, the 20-year-old Green won the sprint in 24:22.2, 39 seconds ahead of silver medalist Alexandra Hulshof (42:41.0) and third-place Ema Chlepkova, both from Calgary’s Foothills Nordic Club.
“It was good but I had a really tough first (shooting bout) prone – I did four penalty loops,” said Green. “But I felt really good skiing and I love this course, just more time out there.
“My second standing was really good so overall I’m pretty happy. I was worried about the cold but it warmed up a bit from yesterday (race temperature was -12 C) and it just felt good.”
Results from Saturday’s sprints, the pursuit races on Sunday and a mass start race on Tuesday will determine the overall rankings to select 16 biathletes (four from each age class/gender) that Canada will send to the 2025 Junior/Youth World Championships Feb. 26-March 5 in Oestersund, Sweden.
Green went to Estonia last year as the Canadian junior champ and hopes to use that experience to her advantage, assuming she makes the junior team.
“I really liked the course there, It’s so interesting with all the different countries, it’s really cool,” Green said
As an added bonus, Biathlon Canada will send its top juniors to a couple IBU Cup races following world championships. Green knows there’s that added incentive to qualify the junior team but hasn’t checked the IBU Cup calendar to find out where the races will be.
“It’s don’t know where, I haven’t checked, it’s bad luck for me, I’m going to race (this weekend ) and then I’ll see,” Green said.
Green started her season at the Canadian team trials in Canmore, followed by a Calforex Cup event. She and also entered two NorAm cross-country race at Sovereign Lake near Vernon but had a bout with flu that forced her to missed the NorAm biathlon race in December at Vernon.
Green, who moved to Canmore for training in 2022, will be first out of the gate for Sunday’s pursuit, with racers following her in three-second intervals based on the order of finish in the sprints.
“Personally I don’t like pursuits, I’d rather be out there on my own, suffering,” she said. “But they’re much more fun.”
In the junior men’s sprint, Liam Simons of Prince George, 20, cleaned his targets and finished second to Benjamin Brosseau of Canmore Nordic. Brosseau, who shot 7-for-10, completed the course in 27:37.4, stopping the clock 8.4 seconds ahead of Simons. Jean-Nicolas DeBroeck of Chelsea, Que., won bronze (27:57.8). Liam Sinclair of Prince George finished 17th (33:22.8) in a field of 20 racers.
Simons had to write exams for his engineering studies at UBC-Okanagan in Kelowna and that forced him to miss the NorAm at Vernon, where the 20-year-old trains with the Sovereign Lake Nordic Development Centre.
The three trials races at Otway this week come at the perfect time, right before he heads to Italy for the FISU World University Games and his silver-medal sprint result Saturday provided a massive shot of confidence.
“It was a good race for sure, nice shooting, good skiing, it’s nice and fast out there,” said Simons. “It’s a tough course, lots of uphill, but fast conditions.
“I’m super excited about Italy, I just got out of exams and it’s starting to feel real and I’m starting to think about it. This is a nice chuck-up before the big races. It’ll be my first international (event) and it’ll be a nice break from everything else, just focusing on the racing, and I’ll enjoy that.”
Six males and six females, including Aliah Turner of Prince George, will represent Canada at the FISU event, Jan. 13-23. The Canadian team leaves for Italy next Friday.
In the youth women’s sprint, Cheyenne Tirschmann of Whitehorse, Yukon won it in 18:42.6, followed by silver medalist Flora Csonka of Foothills and local favourite Isla Cadell of Prince George (19:44.0), racing for the Caledonia club.
In the youth men’s sprint, it was a medal sweep for the Foothills club, with Luke Hulshof leading the way with a time of 21:00.3; followed by silver medalist Justin Konoff and third-place Matus Chlepko.
Zachary Connelly of Chelsea won the men’s (22-plus) sprint in 27:11.0, while Matthew Strum of Canmore (Sport Performance Under Development claimed silver (28:22.2) and Ryan Elden of Cariboo Ski Touring Club (Quesnel) won bronze (29:17.1).
Other Caledonia club results were as follows: Youth women – Isla Cadell, seventh; Payton Sinclair, 11th; Aliah Turner, 12th; Natalie Hoehn, 24th. Youth men – Nathanael Dean, 17th; Oscar Nelson 22nd, Ewan Hawes, 24th, David Hillhouse, 26th.
Full results are on the Zone4 website.
